Pamfilova Tells Putin Not to Despair: He’s Still Young and can Count on Getting 100 Percent in Some Future Election

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 18 – According to one story circulating among Russians, Ella Panfilova, the head of Russia’s Central Election Commission has told Vladimir Putin not to despair that he didn’t get everyone to vote for him. You’re still young, she reportedly said, adding that in some future vote, the Kremlin leader will in fact get his desired 100 percent.

            This is just one of the anecdotes Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova has assembled in her latest online collection (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/48053/100). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       In Chechnya, the population voted not for Putin but for Kadyrov’s son Adam. After all, the latter has won everything else.

·       Murmansk residents have now been labelled foreign agents given that the region’s coat of arms is yellow and blue, the colors of Ukraine.

·       Russians are outraged that Ukrainians should respond to the shelling of their cities and towns by bombing Russian ones.

·       A question everyone is asking themselves: will Russians use gas, already in short supply, to fuel tanks in Ukraine or harvesters in Russian wheat fields?

·       The Duma now says election officials can change the votes of someone if there is an error. That’s always been true, but now it is official.

·       Russians calm when the line behind them is shorter than the line in front of them.

·       No one should be surprised by the outcome of the Russian elections. After all, a commandant always wins in a concentration camp.

·       Russians are silent now because they’ve already voted.

·       North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was the fist to congratulate Putin on his election victory. It is said that the North Korean boss really liked the limousine the Kremlin leader sent him.

·       A new president has arrived in Russia, according to the old style, just like the calendar.